This fascinating book isn't just a gathering of brilliant poems by some of Italy's finest writers. It explores attitudes to landscape, and what Italians call their paese, meaning both `my town, my village, the countryside I come from' as well as the country as a whole. It's about liking a hill-walk (Leopardi) or hating the loneliness of country places (Belli); about landscape as sex-object (Ariosto) or moral stage-set (Tasso), as a place for visions (D'Annunzio) or nostalgia (Pascoli); about a spring that recalls national history (Carducci) and a holy place that reminds us foreigners are human too (Giusti). Through poems or excerpts from the greatest Italian poems, this tragical-comical-historical-pastoral book presents a view of Europe's changing attitudes to the stuff under all our feet, from the bright and traditional Middle Ages into this gloomy and personal century. The poems, chosen by Alistair Elliot, are printed opposite his translations. There are also helpful notes on Italian verse technique and on points of obscurity.